Warren Buffett Quotes

I think that business book reporting, it's all Jim Collins, it's the story of victory; it's success bias over and over again.

When I was a CEO, the books on management that I read weren't very much help after the first few months on the job. They were all designed to give you directions on how not to screw up your company.

I learned a lot from Jack Welch about how to run a business.

I was always fascinated by the decision-making process and the managerial process and just business in general.

One thing I've learned about his business is this whole 'plan thing' - it doesn't work.

My business is to prevent the future.

Early in my career, I sometimes found it difficult to make the tough people decisions - I had to learn that. In business, you want to listen. You want to learn. You want to make sure you're not proceeding without information. But if you wait too long, you can actually hurt an organization even more.

Business is war! Its leaders are strategic commanders, who boldly snatch victory from the jaws of defeat - and who perform other acts of derring-do. This kind of talk sounds great in the boardroom, and, for that matter, in the bookstore, where dozens of authors counsel would-be corporate warriors.

I used to think business was 50 percent having the right people. Now I think it's 80 percent.

Nobody has a crystal ball, and part of evolving a business plan is to say, 'I might have said we're going left, but I see the opportunity and we're going right.'

I have almost no interest in quarterly reports. Running a business or investing in a business based on quarterly earnings doesn't make any sense at all to me.

If you're running an engineering or finance company, all companies depend on ideas and ingenuity. I think the principles of creative leadership apply everywhere, whether it's an advertising company or whether you're running a hospital.

We can reorient our products and business strategy because we are an agile organisation.

I think a good business book has one coherent idea that is richly played out.

I've worked in the business world and, as a futurist, the whole 20 years that I've led at Mosaic.

A big company is like trying to steer a luxury liner.

Business chief executive officers and their boards succumb to the pressures of the financial markets and their fears of takeovers and pour out their energies to produce quarterly earnings - at the expense of building their companies for the long term.

There are companies with management and companies with money. You can always find money. Management is the key to success in any business.

Most corporate disasters are driven not by market forces, but by CEOs messing things up.

Business [compared to government] has an advantage in that we know that if we don’t take risks, it’s about survival … Business has to also stand behind government leaders who take risk.,, That’s what leadership is about.

Too many people who come in as CEO of a poorly performing company assume that none of the incumbent executives are worth retaining. That's not always the case. Sometimes the talent is there, but it's not being led well.

Being a Navy SEAL and sniper taught me all about risk management. Take away all the risk variables under your control and reduce it to an acceptable level. The same fundamentals apply in business.

When I was made captain, one of my things was that whatever happens in those four years, you don't want to make major changes just before a World Cup. We'd done it before, and it never worked.

I am fully supportive of the strategy and leadership team at Valeant.

Every organization has to prepare for the abandonment of everything it does.